Dessert Nachos for April Fool’s Day

Life is a lot like Dessert Nachos for April Fool’s Day. Allow me to explain…

Plans are a funny thing (the jokesters). You can formulate all you want but life likes to take control and show you who’s boss. Yesterday I had great plans for the day. I like to write out what I need to get done with check boxes next to them, of course, so I can anally check off each box as I go (aaaaahhh, the sheer satisfaction of productivity!) and yesterday was no exception. I had several things to do and got my day starting off at the crack of dawn.

Except the Universe had a totally different direction she wanted to go with me. A little life lesson, if you will, that sometimes you have to scream rather loudly in order to get my attention. Which is just what She did. Usually when things repetitively go wrong you tend to get the message that something just isn’t working, right, and that maybe you should try a different route? What is that adage: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results?

Well there I was frantically trying to create this recipe that I was convinced I HAD to master. Don’t ask how I came to that conclusion, I just tend to have these hairy ideas at times and I convince myself that it’s the Lord’s work and must be done. I am, after all, a lofty disciple of allergen-friendly food. Yet everything was going wrong, like badly oh-so wrong. Now usually when this happens it’s not a big deal because that’s the point of recipe creation: Constant trial and error. But when you waste time, ingredients and patience with nothing to show for it, that is when you say, Okay stop, for reals! Plus it was SUCH a sugary treat that I had to keep eating just to make sure it tasted good that I think I heard a voice (or maybe I was sugar-hallucinating?) say, “You need to stop this Cara, you can’t keep eating this without bad stuff happening to you!!”* But I was a woman possessed or obsessed. I was ‘sessed however you want to look at it and I just thought that if I could master this recipe then great things would happen. I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe a parade, the Red Sea parting, or possibly a star named after me??! So silly. Sometimes we do dumb things for the wrong reasons, especially when we forget our own voice in the midst of it.

*My recovery from Candida has required me to put a severe halt from eating too much sugar these days so I have to really be careful with recipe creation that doesn’t require me to 1). Use a ton of sugar like I used to; and 2). Eat it in order to test it out. It’s what I love about my holiday creations; I don’t have to taste it for the most part. I just create, which is the fun part anyway!

Instructions

Toss the tortilla triangles with the olive oil until completely coated. Sprinkle the coconut sugar and cinnamon to evenly distribute and coat over the chips.

Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes or until crispy. You might want to flip over halfway throughout baking.

While the chips are baking, throw together the strawberries, jicama, and basil together with the lime juice. Allow the fruit to release their juices to look more like tomatoes. Set in the fridge.

Scoop out the solid coconut cream into a deep bowl. With a hand mixer on medium-high speed, whip up until it becomes like whipped cream. Add the vanilla extract and whip until combined. Separate out about 1/4 c. cream and set aside in the fridge. Place the food coloring into the bowl and mix until it becomes a fun orange color.

Assemble the nachos.

Nutrition

Serving Size:1/2 plate of nachos

Calories:384

Sugar:4g

Sodium:250mg

Fat:25g

Saturated Fat:17g

Carbohydrates:44g

Fiber:7g

Protein:5g

Did you make this recipe?

So the Universe did what any good, caring Universe does to get the point across and…made my internet AND computer go out simultaneously. Crap, well now I am really against the wall and have nothing left to do! See? You have to shout to get my attention and don’t you dare take away my internet! I had nothing to show for my day so I managed to put on my big girl panties and sulk the entire time walking over to the gym to just get some of the frustration out of my system. And that is where I heard another voice (oh goodness, you must think I’m losing it; hearing all these voices) and it said:

Stop trying to control this and just let go. You have another option that you aren’t even looking at, one that requires you to be true to YOU so find that.

It was in that moment where I accepted not getting this particular recipe right and it made me wonder how many times I do this in life where I am trying to be something I am not, despite the Universe trying to tell me it’s okay just to be me and be okay with where I am at…

What I finally saw was that the Universe was reminding me that sometimes life isn’t what you think it is. Just when you think you are sinking your teeth into something savory, it’s actually sweet. Thank you Dessert Nachos (for April Fool’s Day) for the visualization.

Oh man, I have been down that road a few times. I can’t stand failing over and over while developing a recipe. And then I get super-determined BECAUSE I WILL NOT FAIL. But things just get worse and worse because I’m getting tired and cranky and probably, like you, eating too much sugar or fat or whatever in the taste-testing. I admire your ability to look past that and move on. And I also admire those nachos. They look amazing.

These look amazing! Can’t wait to try making them, but I think I won’t let people in on the secret that they are grain-free until they taste…too many friends have a bias against my GF cooking. Seems like the perfect recipe to “fool” everyone!